The present invention relates to a liquid container and an ink-jet recording apparatus having the liquid container.
As the background concerning this invention, in cases where an attempt is made to refill the exhausted ink or solvent of an ink jet recording apparatus, an operator holds by hand a refill liquid container while letting its pourer be in the open state; so, when performing a pouring operation, a handling failure can occur, which leads to the risk of spilling the ink or solvent inside the liquid container.
Prior known techniques for avoiding this risk include a method having the steps of coupling the refill liquid container to an adapter on the ink system side while letting the container's liquid-sealing portion be in the closed state, opening this liquid seal portion after having established firm engagement, and then refilling the ink or solvent.
One prior art technology pertinent to this method is disclosed, for example, in JP-A-2011-500353. This patent literature involves the following recitation: “A method for measuring the volume of a liquid such as ink or solvent remaining within a storage vessel, such as a replacement cartridge used for continuous ink-jet printer, is arranged to use a reservoir surrounding the interior space having a variable volume for the storage use. This reservoir is designed to provide a decrease in internal space pressure, which substantially monotonously increases in significance when the liquid is drawn into the printer, enabling the volume of a residual liquid to be calculated from the information of a minimal extraction pressure required to draw a further liquid into the printer from the reservoir. The vessel used in the present invention has a small-amount liquid outlet port. This port is arranged to spout a liquid in small amounts when an extraction pressure of outside of the port is less than the internal space pressure and to prevent entry of air to the reservoir's internal space in process of performing the small-amount-at-a-time spouting of the liquid.”
The above-stated JP-A-2011-500353 teaches only a mechanism of a method for refilling the exhausted ink or solvent of an ink jet printer. As suggested in JP-A-2011-500353, one appropriate approach to controlling small-amount liquid ejection while preventing the air from entering the reservoir's interior space is to arranging the port to have a self-sealing partition, which is pierced by a fine hollow tube or needle when a replacement cartridge is in use. The liquid is drawn out by a pump to flow through the tube, which is connected to the pump by liquid-tight engagement schemes.
In this case, however, the in-vessel liquid is drawn by the pump into the apparatus; so, depending on an installation position of the partition seal unit on the replacement cartridge side and/or a setting direction of the replacement cartridge to the reservoir, a certain quantity of liquid can remain inside the replacement cartridge after completion of the liquid refilling operation.